Schedule for November 2009

    Janice Grimes of Webster, Iowa wrote the above as part of the testimony she and many others, including Franklin County residents, submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on consolidation in the dairy industry.

    The hearing was held in St. Albans on Sept. 19, but farmers, cooperative executives and others from around the country submitted written testimony afterward.

    Cooperative executives wrote about the need to preserve the anti-trust exemption for cooperatives under the Capper-Volstead Act, critics of the dairy industry wrote about the dangers of large farming operations to the environment, but farmers wrote about what they are facing every single day – the fear, the uncertainty, the unending anxiety created by not knowing when or if they’ll be able to pay their mortgage or purchase food for their families and their animals.

    Mary Schneider, of Barnesville, Md., described how her daughters, nieces and nephews are the sixth generation to live on the family’s dairy farm. Her parents have been forced to sell portions of the farm to cover taxes and living expenses. “Dairy farming is a hard life and it takes its toll physically as well as mentally. How much will the soybeans produce? Will the market hold? Will the machinery need to be repaired or replaced? Will I have reliable help to get the job done? Housing and health insurance for themselves and the hired help?... No one is in God’s hands more than a farmer,” Schneider wrote.

    One farmer, who asked to remain unnamed, described how she and her husband had taken two vacations in their 36-year marriage. On one of those trips, she overheard an auctioneer describing how cattle dealers were fixing the price of calves to a level so low some farmers were receiving bills from auctioneers rather than checks. She compared that price faxing to what is currently happening in the dairy industry.

    Dairy farmers, she wrote, are being asked to subsidize others. “When milk powder was sold in large quantities for lower than world market prices, we subsidized others. When co-op leaders are flying around on their jets and living the life of Riley, we are subsidizing that while not having access to knowledge of what salaries or bonuses they are being paid. Too many dairy farmers do not have the time to seriously study what is going on,” she wrote.

    “The local dairy farmer is losing money every day,” Grimes wrote. “However, the price of milk has not decreased that much in the store. We know that someone is making a huge profit and it is not us. It has to be the cooperatives or the processors, so why would the very people who are making the money be testifying to the ag committee?” she asked.

    “We want our voices heard,” Grimes continued. “The cooperatives and the processors are looking out for themselves at our expense.”

    Chase Goodrich, a Vermont farmer who operates the Goodrich Family Farm with his sister, described the profits of Dean Foods, the nation’s largest dairy processor, contrasting their profits with his family’s struggles to hang onto their farm.

    “As Dean Foods documents record profits, dairy farmers work tooth and nail at the mercy of this company to survive. Hundreds of farmers have been unable to make ends meet and hundreds more are on the edge, including our farm. While my family stresses daily on how we can possibly keep the farm operating, the CEO of Dean Foods cashes his $116 million bonus check. What Dean Foods is doing to the dairy industry is about as unethical as it gets, and if something is not done soon, the future of America’s family farm is in serious jeopardy,” Goodrich wrote.

    Alice Allen of Al-Lens Farm in Wells River, Vt, is one of four farmers who have brought a class action anti-trust suit against New England’s two largest dairy processors, Dean Foods and HP Hood, as well as the nation’s largest farm cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, and its marketing arm, Dairy Marketing Services.

    “As a dairy farmer I am concerned with not only the effect of mega mergers on my dairy business but also the effect on consumers who buy our products,” Allen wrote in her testimony. “We have fewer and fewer processors to which we can sell our milk …. There is little or no competition among processors. We dairy farmers will end up with only one or two outlets for our milk which will undoubtedly raise the price consumers pay in the store,” Allen testified.

    Allen asked that the Justice Department review the relationships between the major processors, their management, Dairy Farmers of America and Dairylea.

    Ralph McNall, a Fairfax farmer and president of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, pointed in a different direction, asking for a change in how milk is priced. Currently, milk sold for drinking and for use in making cream-based products such as ice cream and yogurt are priced based on the price for cheese and butter. McNall suggested that the price for drinking milk should be based upon the cost of production or the consumer price index, but not the price of cheese.

    Others made similar suggestions.

    Like other cooperative leaders, McNall reiterated the importance of the cooperatives and the anti-trust exemption they receive under the Capper-Volstead Act which allows farmers to join together to market their milk.

    Interestingly, the only time Capper-Volstead and the removal of the cooperatives’ anti-trust exemption was mentioned during the hearing was when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked Christine Varney, the head of the anti-trust division, if a cooperative, such as Dairy Farmers of America, which was not acting in the best interests of its members, could have its exemption under Capper-Volstead revoked.

    Varney replied that such a revocation might be possible, but was not something to be undertaken lightly.

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